Why gangnam style is stupid

K-pop is more than just an export article. If anything, he says, the video has become a source of national pride for the South Koreans as it has become a global hit and the most popular YouTube video ever. Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab. Read about new methods for managing stress in working life. Two researchers tell the story of how the pandemic completely altered their research topic and how they dealt with it.

Now, Park has succeeded where the K-Pop entertainment-industrial-complex and its superstars have failed so many times before: he's made it in America. The opening track on his sixth album, "Gangnam Style" watch it at right , has earned 49 million hits on YouTube since its mid-July release, but the viral spread was just the start. I don't expect much from K-Pop to begin with, so the first 50 times I heard this, I was just like, 'Allright, whatever.

One of the first things Hong pointed to in explaining the video's subtext was, believe it or not, South Korea's sky-high credit card debt rate. In , the average household carried credit card debt worth a staggering percent of their disposable income for comparison, the U.

There are nearly five credit cards for every adult. South Koreans have been living on credit since the mids, first because their country's amazing growth made borrowing seem safe, and then in the late s when the government encouraged private spending to climb out of the Asian financial crisis. The emphasis on heavy spending, coupled with the country's truly astounding, two-generation growth from agrarian poverty to economic powerhouse, have engendered the country with an emphasis on hard work and on aspirationalism, as well as the materialism that can sometimes follow.

Gangnam, Hong said, is a symbol of that aspect of South Korean culture. That's seven percent of the entire country's GDP in an area of just 15 square miles. A place of the most conspicuous consumption, you might call it the embodiment of South Korea's one percent. You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms.

You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Skip to Main Content Skip to Search. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. But the mere fact of its popularity is not in itself proof of its loathesomeness, any more than the once-awesome popularity of my first high-school crush, Mary Ellen, was a legitimate justification of my resentment of her.

All of us driven by adolescent delusions of exceptionalism should welcome, rather than reject, phenomena of mass popularity; we need them, if only to be able to define ourselves by our exclusion from their aura. The reasons to hate the video are obvious and well documented in Youtube user rants.